Book One – Chapter 19

“I …”

“Don’t lie for Gurs.”

“I’m not! And what’s the thing with Gurs? I’m not lying! This was … Look, I know why you’re angry. Or worried — Wait, let me finish, just let me finish! I meant worried! Worried, all right? I know what this is. The Sharran Vey, I mean. I’m from the Barnstreams, we have that everywhere. It’s like our natioal —”

“This is not Sharran Vey,” Bubs cut in.

Yu stared.

“This is Sharnay,” Bubs sounded out the syllables with emphasis, and then continued to spell out the rest of his words as if Yu were a stump-brained hatchling. “As. It says. On. The label.”

“But …,” Yu’s thoughts stalled, skidded, and then lurched. “But it has the areole and everything?”

“It’s something I made out of Sharran Vey. So who asked for that?”

“So then it is — Wait, I mean — I got it for me, all right? It was for me. I wanted to drink it. I thought it’s Sharran Vey. Because of the bottle. And the areole. Because I know that from home. But, well, I mean, I dropped it, and the areole broke. I know it’s dangerous, and that you can’t drink it now. When it’s broken, I mean. That’s why I put it there. All the way back, I mean. Everything was so busy, you know? I just got it out of the way, so I wouldn’t pour it by accident — I mean, of course that wouldn’t happen, obviously, with how the bottle looks and all, but still, just to get it out of the way. I didn’t drink it. I know I ruined it. Sorry. I didn’t open another. I only drank water.”

At first, Bubs had looked poised to interrupt, but the torrent of Yu’s flailing ramble held him suspended. When the rambling finally sputtered to a stop, there was a pause, in which Bubs just looked him over, up and down. Yu was just about to start again, with some new explanation, some other pathetic elaboration —

But Bubs turned away. He waddled around the centre workbench once more, his hand grazing past the bottles that littered the benches along the wall until he seized a clear one. He raised it into the lamplight like a fresh charge brought before a magistrate.

“What about this one?” he demanded.